Botsync to raise up to USD 15m, plots US entry—CEO

Botsync, a Singapore-based robotics company focused on automating movement of goods in factories and warehouses, is looking to raise USD 10m to USD 15m from investors in the next 12 months as its US market entry plans take shape, CEO and co-founder Rahul Nambiar told Mergermarket.

The founders still hold a sizeable stake in the firm and Nambiar said Botsync would be willing to cede a 15% to 20% stake in the new round. He declined to comment on valuation but said it would welcome discussions and pitches from financial advisors.

Existing investors would be a natural target for this fundraising, but the company is also keen to speak to strategic investors, like other corporates in the robotics space with strong synergies. Additionally, it would be interested in investors from other regions, especially the US, whose network and presence could help Botsync with its expansion plans.

Botsync raised USD 1m from a seed funding round in 2020, another USD 2m as a bridge round over the next couple of years and bagged USD 5.2m from a Series A fundraising in June 2024. The Series A was led by Betatron Venture Group and Capital 2B, with participation from IvyCap Ventures, AppWorks, Iterative, Wong Fong, ZB Capital, Nalin Advani, and Ascend Angels, according to an announcement at the time.

Nambiar reckons Botsync still has two years of runway from its fundraising so far.

The firm’s sales have been growing roughly 100% year on year for the past few years. It is projecting a 100% to 150% year-on-year revenue growth in 2025. If Botsync hits its 2025 revenue projections, it will be close to being EBITDA positive, said Nambiar.

US entry, expansion in other markets

Founded in 2019 by Nambiar, Nikhil Venkatesh, Prashant Trivedi, and Singaram Venkatachalam—all graduates from Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University—Botsync has an office each in Singapore and India, while its clients span Indonesia, Thailand, and Australia. The US is next on the cards.

“The US has been of interest for a while and we are analysing which of our customers could expand there before we open operations in the US. But we expect to develop our business in the US in the next 12 months,” the CEO said.

Botsync uses two expansion strategies: setting up offices in core markets and forging partnerships in non-core ones. For markets it considers core, it would open an office and set up a presence on the ground only after one of its customers decides to expand there and hires Botsync to implement automation of its warehouse operations, explained Nambiar.

India and Singapore are its core markets, with the firm planning to set up an office in Australia as well once its customer is already deployed in the country. The US market will also be a core one, with Botsync intending to set up an office there once its clients finalise their US expansion.

In other markets, Botsync works with partners or resellers who handle automation implementation for the customer, said Nambiar.

For partner-driven expansion, the company sees prospects to grow in the Middle East and South Africa in the near future, given the interest from manufacturers to automate their heavy-load operations, he added.

“We are actively looking at opportunities to collaborate with potential resellers and partners who want to bring our solutions to markets we may not be there in yet,” said the CEO. “We would be happy to partner with firms that see opportunities to automate automation solutions in new markets.”

Botsync initially focused on automating the movement of heavy goods from one warehouse to another, before helping factories and manufacturers automate their processes. But in the past year, it has concentrated more on building an integration platform focused on robotics solutions to help clients better manage different robotics vendors and software providers, explained Nambiar.

He pointed out that the robotics industry has seen a lot of M&A by larger players of smaller startups. Botsync has also been fielding approaches from buyers, but Nambiar said it’s too soon to think of an exit—even if an M&A would be Botsync’s ideal exit opportunity, realistically in about three years.

“Legacy players and those who want to get into this space are looking at opportunities to work with startups like us, which is why we’ve been getting a lot of interest of late,” he said. “That will continue to grow, so we hope that expanding our customer network, being in the right markets and growing our revenues further will put us in a good position to be an ideal candidate for such an engagement.”

Botsync has a total of 20 enterprise clients, mainly from the automative and fast-moving consumer goods industries. These include groups like carmaker Ford [NYSE:F], Indian logistics services provider Mahindra Logistics [NSE:MAHLOG], and crane and tractor maker Caterpillar [NYSE:CAT], as well as food and drinks giant Nestlé [SWX:NESN] and Coca-Cola [NYSE:KO], said Nambiar.

By Rashmi Kumar in Singapore